Elevator pitches are a great way to share some of the ideas that have been brewing here at the Biomedical Engineering Entrepreneurship Academy.  

One of the first and easiest ways to prototype a potential venture is the well-crafted elevator pitch.  With this in hand, anyone can get great feedback from potential customers, mentors, advisors, investors. Sure, you can communicate alot more detail with more time, but that leaves less time to listen and learn. Below are the BMEA2011 elevator pitches—all based on research being conducted in university labs around the country: 

• A simple and extremely affordable indicator to detect the proper pasteurization of water for use anywhere boiling is used to treat suspect water.
• An imaging technology that can help prevent heart attacks by detecting plaques in danger of rupture.
• A noninvasive and cost-effective device for early detection of cancer that distinguishes cancerous and noncancerous tumors immediately.
• A device that improves the success rate in new drug development of identifying and developing drug-potential proteins.
• A novel point of care device enabling doctors to rapidly detect Alzheimer’s disease earlier, objectively, and more reliably than previously possible.
• A device that directly treats brain swelling in patients with severe traumatic brain injuries.
• A device capable of diagnosing breast cancer, bio-radiation damages, and the stage of damage.
• A targeted gene therapy that improves the recovery and performance of surviving heart muscle following a heart attack.
• Device that helps clinicians quickly and reliably identify patients at a high risk for coronary vascular disease.
• A pulsatile heart-assist pump for implant in heart-failure patients that avoids edema and mechanical fatigue, the typical complications of existing devices.
• Implantable biomaterials that replace tissue function, induce tissue regeneration, and improve implant success for cardiovascular tissues.
• A reusable microfluidics device for biologist to run flow assays at low-cost.
• A novel protocol that uses existing stem cell technologies to create an immune-compliant, off-the-shelf implantable cartilage tissue.
• An implantable device that replaces eye-alignment surgery.
• A novel method for sterilizing bone implants that dramatically improves graft surgery outcomes.
• A consumer device for "at-home" sleep apnea monitoring.
• A point-of-care diagnostic device that rapidly identifies multi-drug resistant malaria.
• A breast pump that use natural stimulation, rather than vacuum, to produce silent, discrete, and pain-free lactation.
• A hand-held medical device that predicts an individual’s probability of developing particular cancers, enabling high risk individuals to make appropriate life style changes.
• An automated device that dramatically increases the speed of the cell injection process, a central and time-consuming task in research involving cell reprogramming and single-cell analysis.
• A  method for optimizing electrical nerve stimulation that restores lost functions in individuals with neurological disorders.
• An accurate glaucoma diagnostic device that measures intraocular pressure, aiding in prognosis, prevention, and management.
• A semi-implantable blood microsensor that enables wireless patient monitoring during, and after emergency room visits.
• An optical imaging technique that halves failures in glaucoma surgeries.
• We hack Microsoft’s Kinect to cost-effectively, objectively, and more accurately diagnose hindered biomechanical movements.
• Indwelling catheters that do not contribute to drug resistant bacteria, reducing hospital acquired infections.
• A blood diagnostic for obesity and diabetes, risk factors for heart disease, that can guide lifestyle choices and clinical interventions.
• A multimedia resourec for the communication of scientific protocols
• Therapeutic liver cells that provide a competitive and safer alternative to whole liver transplant. 
• A cell therapy for millions of patients with vascular disease that reduces potentially fatal blockages and repeat surgeries by 75%.
• Imaging software that detects out faint signals in noisy images, as found in medical images, satellite photos, or any image with hazy or noisy background.